


Bloody But Unbowed

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7053535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate: Atlantis, any, <i>In the fell clutch of circumstance / I have not winced nor cried aloud. / Under the bludgeonings of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed.</i><br/>William Ernest Henley"</p><p>Evan wonders how Ronon copes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloody But Unbowed

Evan got the sense that Ronon didn’t talk a lot because he didn’t have much to say. And maybe, also, because he’d been out of the habit of talking to other humans for seven years. Now that Ronon was on Sheppard’s gate team, Evan saw him a lot more, if only in the course of his XO duties and reporting to Sheppard and the like. Evan took his licks against Ronon in the gym as an example to the other marines. Evan had learned that a good officer should never order his men to make a sacrifice he was unwilling to make, so he let Ronon hand his ego to him, and he picked himself up, and he practiced, and then he came back the next week.  
  
According to Teyla, who was always willing to educate people in the history and culture of the Pegasus Galaxy, Ronon had been a Runner, a random human who was picked by the Wraith, tagged with a tracker, and set loose for some kind of sick hunting game. As Teyla’s story unfolded, about how the Wraith would slaughter anyone who helped Ronon, how Ronon was one of the few survivors of the destruction of his entire civilization seven years ago, Evan wondered how the man had woken up every morning for seven years.  
  
How he walked through the halls of Atlantis with his head held high.  
  
How he wasn’t curled up in a ball on Heightmeyer’s floor, a gibbering wreck.  
  
How he could go through the gate with Sheppard and his team and keep on fighting the Wraith.  
  
Now that Evan knew a bit more about the man, he was curious. What was Ronon like before he was a Runner? What was his family like? What was Satedan military structure like? Had he had a spouse and children? What hobbies did he have? What had he done for fun? Because all he seemed to do these days was train, eat, and fight the Wraith.  
  
But there was an amused glint in his eyes sometimes when McKay and Sheppard were baiting each other over a problem, and Evan thought he saw affection and respect in Ronon’s eyes when he got done sparring with Teyla.  
  
Evan was startled out of some mindless doodling on one of the cafeteria napkins when Ronon sat down opposite him at lunch one day.  
  
“You’ve been watching me,” Ronon said.  
  
“I have,” Evan began, and when Ronon’s eyes narrowed, hastened to add, “not in a creepy way, though. I’m just...kinda curious, I guess.”  
  
“Curious about what?”  
  
“About...you.”  
  
Ronon raised his eyebrows. “You wanna sleep with me or something?”  
  
“What-? No!” Evan darted a hunted glance at the marines at a nearby table, but they were engaged in a loud and raucous game of cards and hadn’t heard a thing.  
  
Ronon looked a little offended. “People have wanted to sleep with me before.”  
  
“It’s not that you’re not attractive -”  
  
“So you _do_ want to sleep with me.”  
  
“No. It’s - my military has rules. About. That sort of thing,” Evan said. “I just wondered...how do you do it?”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
“Get up every day? Keep fighting the Wraith? After all you’ve been through -”  
  
Ronon caught Evan’s gaze, held it. “You’re a soldier. You have a job. That job is to fight. If I don’t get up, I’m not fighting, and if I’m not fighting, the Wraith win. I will never let the Wraith win.” And with that, Ronon dug into his pasta.  
  
“Right,” Evan said faintly, and finished eating quickly. He stood up to go, jumped when Ronon clamped a hand on his wrist.  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
Evan blinked and looked down. Ronon was pointing to the napkin he’d been doodling on.  
  
“Oh. That’s the Golden Gate Bridge. From back home. It’s nothing, I was just messing around.”  
  
“It’s good,” Ronon said, and let go of his wrist, kept eating. “Can I keep it?”  
  
“Sure.” It was just a doodle, but if Ronon wanted it, Evan wasn’t going to put up a fight.  
  
“Can you draw anything? Anything you can think of?” Ronon asked.  
  
Evan considered. “Pretty much.”  
  
“If I described something to you, could you draw it?”  
  
“Sure.” It had been one of his required skills as a surveyor, producing quick but accurate maps for his superiors to consider after he’d surveyed an area.  
  
Ronon nodded and kept on eating, and Evan - he fled with as much dignity as he could muster.

Ronon caught him three nights later, when he was an informal patrol of the main living corridors, and somehow they ended up in the nearly-empty mess hall, Evan armed with charcoal and a sketchpad, Ronon giving him terse instructions to draw a city.  
  
When it was finished, Evan went to tear it out of his sketchbook and give it to Ronon, but Ronon said, “It’s Sateda. Keep it. Someone besides me should know what it looks like.”  
  
“Oh. Okay,” Evan said.  
  
Ronon flashed him a brief smile - the barest gleam of teeth and amusement in his eyes - and stood up. “Thanks, Major. See you tomorrow. Gonna kill some Wraith.”  
  
“Tomorrow,” Evan said. He was always just a little bit amazed when he saw Ronon in the mornings when tomorrow became today.


End file.
